Lots and lots of MAINEiacs made the trip to North Smithfield RI for BARKaritaville hosted by ARFF. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..... No, really! It was a great time!!!We brought 3 teams this past weekend:WTF? Multi (Performance team)Curly - 561Reese - 531Koko (playing the role of Rita, lol)Saoirse - 536Banner - 55LeviWTF? ran as a performance team this weekend. What that means is, we get to play and earn points but we cannot place. Rita was unable to play, so instead of pulling the team all together and since it was too late to change the team to an open team we had the pleasure of having Judy and Koko join us. This team ran really well together! Curly is doing so well in start and his left hand turn looks fabulous in a full time spot! Reese was very consistent and even had to run a race being handled by Sarah C and going past Banner and I waiting at the line to be anchor. He had no concerns about us. Saoirse and Sarah H had lots of fun in the lanes together. She wasn't so sure about the few heats Banner ran and coming by her like a freight train. We made some adjustments and everything worked out. Banner and Levi each ran in 1 race. Levi did his job really well and made good choices when he heard his entire village calling for him! Banner held up pretty well and will hopefully keep getting a few more heats each tournament. Shut the front door! Reg 2 - 2nd place!Roxie - 630Pivot - 630Arrow - 730 (Arrow ran a race w/ AFU to help Dakota get her Iron Dog. Congrats Dakota!)Kessie - 600Eliot - 30Tilt This team had a bumpy start but managed to work things out over the course of the weekend. We had a little issue of a dog from another team crossing over. Pivot did the stop drop and roll, so she literally just rolled with it! Lisa, did not! Lisa was taken out and ended up injuring her foot and later made a trip to quick care for an xray. The good news is that it was just a contusion and with some ice, rest and meds she is on the mend. Rebeccah jumped in an ran Pivot for the remainder of the weekend and they did really well together. Roxie was start dog again this weekend. She seems to really like that spot and she can get in and get out quick! Arrow and Deb were getting really consistent together and having some nice passes. Chris ran Kessie and is becoming a pro! However Kessie keeps him in check whenever she thinks he isn't paying enough attention. Eliot did a few heats this weekend and had his own cheering squad! He is really such a nice boy! Tilt didn't get to run after Lisa got hurt, he didn't seem bothered by it though. Fine Whine - Vets - 1st place!Shilo - 655Sammie - 655Sassy - 555Luna - 655Bullet - 100Leap This Vets team is kicking butt!!! A few dropped balls and a few bobbles, but really running so well together. It's hard to pick out anything to say about them individually because they all really know their jobs and do it so well! This team had lots of times in the 20 - 22 second range. Bullet got to run a full race for Sassy. He held his turn really well and seemed to be having fun out there. Leap didn't get to play this weekend, but I think she was just happy to visit with her peeps. Picnic and Peanut warmed up with CXM. Picnic did get to full recalls and was super happy and focused on Rebeccah. Peanut also got to full recalls and did lots of box work with lots of distractions. He made huge progress in a new venue this weekend. New Titles:Eliot FDArrow FDCh-GCurly FMXAfter all the craziness in the lanes, lots of us took some paradise pictures of the dogs and we headed to dinner. It was a long 2 days of racing and we were all definitely tired when we made it back home. Great team work MAINEiacs!!!!Up next:Prince Edward Island ~Staci Yates

This Vets team ran so well together! Lots of races in the 19.50 second range! They ran super clean and had so much fun in the lanes together! Shilo and Sammie did well with only 1 dropped ball and 1 bobbled ball each! Sassy was happy to be with the group of crazy dogs and she even let Bullet have a race! Hawkeye was a good addition to this group of dogs!!! Plus he is super fast!

WTF ran really well too! It's so fun to see Roxie in start! Kessie, Arrow and Abbey all ran for handlers other than their moms and did awesome!!! Levi and Banner showed great work in warm ups and got a few successful heats! Nice job team!!!

Curly loves start!! Reese seems to love passing into Curly!! Rita is getting faster at each tournament and got lots of 5.3's! Gemma is handling each new venue really well and she finished the weekend strong with some 6.8's!!! Murphy and Eliot both did great in warm ups and had wonderful focus!

Baystate BanditsSaoirse - 455Shamu - 55

Saoirse was happy and speedy all weekend until something weird happened near the end of racing on Sunday. She recovered for a warm up but was not feeling up to the race. Shamu stepped in for her and did so well! Annaka and Deb worked well together to pass Shamu for the last leg of each heat.

CXMPeanut - warm up

Peanut did great in warm ups! He did lots of recalls and some box work. He is really making great progress!!!

Picnic, Thistle and Quincy did mat time and looked really good out there. They are all making great strides in their training!!

The team ate well as usual! We grilled steak and burgers! Made breakfast sandwiches, grilled cheese sandwiches and plenty of salads and snacks! We also went to the Mass Chaos weenie roast on Sat night. Great food and fun hanging with the other teams around a camp fire.

Thank you to the entire team for all of the support for each race. We are a well oiled machine in the lanes and get the box ready, and warm ups going asap and the village is there for every dog!

​The MAINEiacs finally got to play flyball again at our 1st tournament of the year in Dover NH at the Maine Coast Runners Spring Fling. This is one of our favorite tournaments and the largest turn-out for our team other than our own tournament. I have a lot to say, so get readddddyyyyy!

First off we had a surprise visit from Wayne and Cynthia and Janice!!!! It was great to see you guys and catch up for a little bit!

A big MAINEiacs welcome to our newest member Chris and Peanut, along with the rest of the family (Linda, Oliver and Roo) who came along to help out and support the Chris/P'Nut and the team.

You can tell that the MAINEiacs have been practicing a lot this past year. We came out and got the job done and worked really well together! There were a few bumps in the road with a few early passes, a couple false starts, a few missed jumps and dropped balls. But honestly that was so minor that I can't even tell you who did what, other than I know I passed Sammie into Shilo at the 1st jump. Ooops!!!! Sorry Shi!

Roxie was an awesome little start dog! She was rearing and ready to go for each race. She did get crossed over on and we all held our breath as it happened. She recovered so quickly! She knows her MAINEiacs have her back!

Pivot was height dog extraordinaire! She runs her little heart out each race and has become such a solid little racer!

Arrow has a need for speed! He ran flawlessly for Deb this weekend and is really starting to get some great passes.

Abbey ran a full time spot this weekend!! She did so good and worked so hard to stay in her lane! She loves to race and watches the other team the entire way down the lane to make sure she is beating that other dog! She has made so much progress over the winter.

Banner warmed up this weekend showing off his left hand "go bump" turn! He did really well and earned himself 2 heats! He held his strides and did a very nice turn while staying up on his feet. The work in progress continues, but this is all headed in the right direction.

Peanut debuted in a warm up spot this weekend. This was a huge deal for him as there were many more people around that are not "his peeps". He got more confident with each warm up and was able to do full run backs by the end of the weekend, was wagging his tail and hanging out in the back of the lanes while his team ran.

Reese loves being the start dog! This dog cracks me up! He is a MAINEiac through and through. He had some nice starts in the 0.015 range and was consistently running with lots of times in the 4.40 - 4.70 range.

Sassy loves running with the border collies, but this weekend she found out what it was like to run with a "nugget"! Sassy passed Reese with no problems and was super excited for each heat!

Luna ran really well in the 3rd spot. She was very speedy and passed like a pro and let out a few barks at Sassy at the start line to make sure she didn't eat her treats!

Saoirse ran her little butt off! She was sassy and barking all weekend and had a lot of fun playing her favorite game! Her turn looks great and the proof is in the pictures!

Levi did lots of warm ups this weekend and earned himself a heat at the end of the day on Sunday. He is showing such focus on Deb and is making huge progress at every practice and tournament!

Shamu and Anna warmed up together. They are becoming a nice pair and working well together. Shamu was a little distracted but worked really well through all of it.

Shilo got to run on a vets team this weekend. I may be wrong, but I think this was his first time on vets at 11yrs old. He is such a great start dog. Rebeccah even ran him this weekend. It's nice to see them in the lanes together again.

Sammie ran really well this weekend. She only bobbled the ball once or twice which is really good for the old lady! She's still running pretty fast too!Leap also ran on the vets team this weekend. She did great passing into some dogs she doesn't know and was a speedy little anchor dog!

Curly ran in start for the 1st time this weekend. He and Amy figured out the lights pretty quick and were getting some nice start times. Curly is really loving the sport with his left hand "go bump" turn.

Kessie was teaching Chris the game of flyball in a tournament setting this weekend! He ran her really well and figured out the sequence of thumping the chicken on the floor to the key to getting it away from her quickly. She was a rock star this weekend!Rita ran a full time spot this weekend too! She had no problems passing Kessie. She is turning out to be a nice core dog!

Gemma was happy to work in another new environment. The ice arena is a little chilly for her so she bundled up in between races. She got a little tired near late morning on Sunday from all of the excitement. She took a little nap in the car and then came back in and finished the weekend strong.

Tilt was saying "put me in coach/captain" all weekend! He was warming up and doing really well. He stepped up and did some nice heats on Sunday. He caught the ball off of the box really well and stayed right in his lane and focused on Lisa the entire way back!

Bullet warmed up and is still working on coming back from when he was chased a while back. He was distracted and lost some confidence, but was definitely building it back up and wanting to play the game with his mom!

Murphy warmed up with CXM and really handled the busy environment really well and was doing some great recalls and box work.

Eliot warmed up with NasDog and did some full recalls and some box work and handled the tournament noise really well too.

We did some mat time on Sat night with Quincy, Picnic, Jester and Thistle. All of them did a good job and made some progress in the lanes from recalls to box work.

New titles:Tilt - FDGemma - FDCh - SArrow - FDCh - S

Final thoughts:I hope I captured a little bit of what went on for everyone over the weekend! We ate well as usual, we had lots of laughs and some good racing! A big thank you to our captain, Rebeccah! She gave up her weekend pet massage class to be there with us. We are very fortunate to have such a great leader/trainer/friend!

The MAINEiacs represented in Dover NH this past weekend! I have so much to re-cap!

I'll start at the top. We started the weekend with SDR on Friday night. Arrow made his debut with restrained recalls on the flat. He's a flyball dog in the making! Ziggy showed us that he didn't forget what flyball was on his winter vacation in FL. This earned him a warm up spot on WTF! Roxie, Rita, Pivot, Bullet and Levi all did full runs and had really great focus while working in a new environment. Bullet and Roxie also earned warm up spots on Bring it!

We then had a very tasty dinner at Cartelli's together.

Sat. racing started with mimosas to kick off the 2014 region 13 season. We had 3 teams representing The MAINEiacs this weekend.

WTF! Multi 2Sammie, Kessie, Luna, Leap, Karmela, Ziggy

Bring it! Regular 2Acre, Reese, Curly, Saoirse, Roxie, Bullet

Fine Whine! VetsShilo, Chance, Sassy, Jada, Xena, Winston(WW)

All 3 teams ran really well with only a few kinks to work out with starts, passing and dropped balls.

Rebeccah created dry erase boards for each team that she would write our warm up plan and team info on for each race. This was an awesome addition to our already organized group!

Sammie earned her FMCh (15k) title on Sat! I am pretty proud of her!

We had our biggest pot luck ever for lunch on Sat, which then fed us for dinner too!

Sarah H. was surprised with a puppy shower for Arrow. She shared the awesome gluten free paw print whoopie pie cake with Janice and Buster. Buster the flying Corgi has officially retired from flyball! We will all miss Buster in the lanes and Janice encouraging him to jump each jump!

After all this we had mat time for the dogs not on any line ups. Riot came out and looked awesome after the couple month break he has had from flyball. Banner got to stretch his legs with some recalls against Gemma. Gemma was pretty unfazed by the environment and she got some full runs in too! She'll do anything for cheese balls! You would have thought that Rita and Levi practice here all the time because they both worked as if it was FFD. Tilt did some great recalls too. All the green dogs did an awesome job and are getting closer and closer to their race day debut!

Then day 2 started!

All the teams were running like well oiled machines to start Sundays racing. Roxie, Bullet, Jada and Karmela got to run a few heats each. Xena and Ziggy did more warm ups and were getting into their groove.

Victoria and Deb did a great job stepping in and running Shilo and Kessie!

We continued to eat all day long on Sunday since we had so much food.

Some big highlights of the weekend were:

Sassy ran a 5.19!

Curly did clean up in the lanes of an extra ball or 2!

Sammie bobbled, almost knocked the boards over and managed to get back in the lane!

Luna self regulated with a bark at Kessie a few times which made a perfect pass!

Saoirse had an awesome re-run where she just followed Sarah's direction and spun around and got sent back down the lane for another ball!

Shilo had a 3.89 at almost 10yrs old!

Reese got to play start dog and got a perfect 0.000 start!

Chance was super solid and was still ready to race more when he was headed to the car to go home!

Kessie screamed her lil head off and was a very good girl for V!

Acre loves being start dog and does a happy dance the entire time!

Leap ran her lil heart out and seemed really happy to be playing flyball this weekend!

Roxie seems to like being bunched up with her Bring it! boys to rev her up and she did complete a really nice heat and showed that her hard work is paying off!

Karmela did a couple heats and was happy that she got to play a little bit!

Jada came out and was single striding on the way back for each of her heats!

Bullet keeps showing more and more interest in flyball and looks like he is having some fun!

To wrap things up from my long winded review, here are the final places.

A group of MAINEiacs couldn't go without racing much longer. So we made the trip to Dogzworth in Montréal for a 1 day tournament. We traveled with 3 vehicles, 7 people and 14 dogs! The drive up was really easy and didn't seem like it took that long.

This is a limited frills type of tournament. There was no single dog racing and not many people even come the day before to set up. But you know us Americans! We needed to set up the night before.

We had a great dinner and then settled in for the night. Racing doesn't start very early in Canada,so we had continental breakfast, packed the vans and truck and off to play flyball we went.

While we has 14 dog with us, we did have much for back up dogs. Rebeccah put together 2 solid teams!

Bring it!Acre, Reese, Curly and SaoirseThis team ran soooo well together! These dogs have been running as a team for almost a year now. They really all love running with each other, and are taking passes like champs! We ran 5 of 5 for 4 races. Bring it! won 17 of the 20 heats for a 1st place finish is regular 2!!! Very nice showing for the 1st tournament of 2014!Team points 456

What the fuzz!Shilo, Kessie, Sammie, LeapAnother great team for FM! Shilo and his girls came to play and that they did! We had some really fun races against Ready Set Go with some smack talking in the lanes and fist bumps to end the races! Deb pulled her calf muscle in the first heat so Sarah jumped in and ran Shilo in start(she has never run Shi in a tournament and never run start). Her first start was .004! Deb managed to suffer through and get back in the lanes with a bit of a hobble before the end of the day. This team had a round robin and we went into it in 2nd place. We ended the day in 2nd place for multi 1!Team points 455

Racing was done by 3:00 and we were ready to hit the road by 3:30. After a quick lunch/dinner we were on the road home by 5:00. It was a long drive home in the dark on the winding roads of VT and NH but we hit Buxton at 10:00. Lisa still had a ways to go from there, but she was re-caffinated and made it the rest of the way.

We are hoping to make the trip back to Montréal next March to kick off the racing year.

We have a few practices coming up, so lets practice hard and get rrrrreadyyyyy for Dover!!

First off I have to say, Wow!!! What a weekend!!!! This tournament ran very smoothly with so many compliments from our vendors, competitors and judges.

We had so many big moments of the weekend with Bullet getting his FD running with CXM. Saoirse got her FDCH-silver on our multi team, Curly got his FDCH-gold on our regular team, Breezie and Hydro both ran on vets and both got their FMCH, what a great accomplishment to end their flyball careers. Happy retirement to them! Last but not least on titles is Sassy, she received her ONYX on our multi team!

All of our teams ran extremely well this past weekend.

What the fuzz!Multi 1 - best time 20.571Lucy, Sammie, Saoirse, Sassy came in 4th and all received 625 points. These girls ran so solid this weekend with so few faults and lots and lots of clean runs! Great job girls and Joey!

Bring it!Regular 2 - best time 20.948Acre, Reese, Curly, Leap came in 2nd and all received 531 points.This team had plenty of early passes this weekend, most of them were my fault. We have all been working really hard on passing and really were getting some great passes too! The early passes were only a dog hair early and not a whole Curly early!

Shut the front door!Open 2 - best time 20.552Polly (486 points) Kessie (491 points) Krave (491 points) Luna (466 points) Jada (30 points). This team came in 3rd place.What a great team this group turned out to be for dogs that never run together. Once we figured out the spacing and timing this team was on fire and even had a breakout time. I know we don't want to breakout, but kinda cool that they ran a 20.446!!

Perfectly Seasoned!Vets - best time 21.065Shilo (391 points), Hydro (276 points), Chance (391 points), Breezie (376 points), Karmela (115 points), Buster (15 points)This team came in 3rd place. Shhhh! Don't tell them that this team is for the old dogs. The dogs don't know they are older yet! This team ran really well together and had lots of fun while doing it!

We have lots of young dogs coming along with training and a few dogs that are making their way back to the lanes. All had great moments during SDR and mat time. Watch for these dogs in lanes soon! Roxie, Levi, Riot, Ziggy, Thistle, Rita, Pivot, Tilt, Xena and Banner.

I can't say it enough how well our teams ran and how organized our tournament went this year. It was so nice to have so many gather for dinner afterwards at McSeagull's!

A huge thank you to John and Tracy (V's friend) for volunteering to help us out!

A couple of the MAINEiacs and a few soon to be MAINEiacs packed up the vehicles and left South Portland, ME at 5:45am to travel 2+ hours for 14 minutes each of flyball today. IT WAS AWESOME!! Very Proud of Saoirse, Curly, Reese and Banner. This was brand new for 3 of the dogs and 2 of their handlers, everyone did a great job! Worked through distractions and a new venue for some successful runs! Big Thanks to Canine Mutiny for hosting, Sue from CxM helping us and the Fast Attack crew for helping Banner with is his passing practice! Nice Job, Flyballers!!

Banner & Staci

Reese & Staci

Curly & Amy

Saoirse & Sarah

Big thanks to Sarah Holmes for being the only one to remember a video camera today! Thanks so much for taking the videos AND posting them!

Our first tournament back in the lanes since November and one of the hardest set of line ups ever. We started with plan "A" 3 teams. Our multi team was pulled out in the limited draw so we moved on the plan "B" two teams, 2 core height dogs and everyone else from the THREE original teams sharing spots. That would give us a total of 11 different line ups over the weekend and no warm ups for the green dogs, YIKES! Then we lost 3 dogs out of the line ups so on to plan "C" which actually worked out well. No sharing spots and our greenies would get some warm up time. THEN we lost 2 more dogs and had to come up with plan "D!" Luckily Stephanie from Ruff Enuff saved the day and brought both Kai and Dash (seasoned visiting MAINEiacs) to play with us!

We started of the racing with a Mimosa toast to the 2012 racing year. A tradition I think we should keep up with! (Thanks, Staci!)

Bring it! Lucy, Flossie, Kessie, Sally (Banner in warm-ups)We had our share of issues but worked through a lot of them. Joey and Lucy are getting better and better at start and pulled out some really nice times! Flossie did a great job holding her own this weekend and had lots of fun! Kessie was a solid little height dog all weekend, if only her mom would stop early passing! And Sally...who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? Sally ran in the Anchor position for the first time ever. She has ALWAYS been a start dog due to her avoidance of a pass but I guess she and Kessie worked it out and they were great!! Banner did some excellent warm-ups and got in one nice clean heat as start dog!! Huge thanks to Chris from Howl for bailing us out on Saturday morning when realized out boxloader was one of the folks that couldn't make it!! Chris, I don't know what we would do with out you!!

What The Fuzz?!Sammie, Kai, Dash, Karmela & Leap (Acre in Warm-ups)Fuzz raced really well this weekend, lots of clean heats we just couldn't out race the competition. That didn't stop us from having fun in the lanes though! Staci and Sammie had lots of GREAT start times. Kai did a great job holding his ball except for one "blonde moment" which quite frankly was adorable. :) I had lots of fun running Dash Dog who is a Maniac in his own right waiting for the lights to start! Karmela did a nice job along side Leap in the height dog position. It was nice to see Leap having fun in the lanes again!! It was also great to race with Blue Ridge Blast! I'm sure the papillon vs papillon racing will be talked about for years! Big Thanks to Dan for NET for boxloading for us!! I hope we weren't moving to fast for ya! :) Huge thanks to Martha for shlepping Acre back and forth for me so he could do some warm-ups! I couldn't have done them without you!! Also a great big THANK YOU and ATTA BOY to Joey for bravely stepping in to boxload not once but twice without missing a beat...errr...ball!! Nice job!!

Shilo got to run in OPEN with NET and we had a blast! He just loves being start dog and once his mom got back in the rhythm we had some nice times. Except when Brinks was in...she really got Shi rev'd!! We had a couple early's and lots of backing up! It was FUN!!

The new location was interesting and once you learned how to maneuver past crating we did well getting to lanes on time. The hotel was close and comfortable with lots of great places to stop for supplies and dinner in between. MAINEiacs are looking forward to doing it all again at the Hangover in March!!

Here's hoping Julie and Phoenix are both feeling better soon! We missed having Julie, Lynda, Wayne and Cynthia there this weekend!

Quite a few MAINEiac's invaded Dieppe New Brunswick this weekend! FAME always has fun tournaments and this weekend was great! We brought up two teams. What the Fuzz: Shilo, Breezie, Sammie, Buster/Xena & Banner. Shut the Front Door: Sally, Hydro, Kessie, Karmela/Leap & Jada.

Saturdays racing had a few bumps and required some line-up order changes for Fuzz. STFD did well on Saturday and started to find their groove. Acre warmed up with PFT and he earned his very first title ever (FD) with them! Very fitting since Bounce earned his last title (ONYX) with them! Thank you PFT!!

Lucky for us this was TWO - one day tournament so on Sunday morning we made some line up changes to the teams. Acre did some running for Breezie and Karmela took Busters spot so he could rest after his first day back in lanes. We definitely pulled it together with all of the changes and did well racing. STFD got a few more points for Miss Jada and Banner got to go in for the last race of the day too! Big thanks to Jules from FAME for the phenomenal border collie catch!!

MAINEiacs biggest thank you goes to Kathy Berry for our lovely accommodations at the Berry Box! Always a highlight of our trip to Dieppe! Special thanks to me team and Kathy for talking me through a tough decision on Friday night. Extra special thanks to Victoria and Kathy for the Fuzzy Sheets!!